Google launches internet-beaming balloons

Christchurch - Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.

It was the culmination of 18 months' work on what Google calls Project Loon, in recognition of how wacky the idea may sound.

Developed in the secretive X lab that came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, the flimsy helium-filled inflatables beam the internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind.

Still in their experimental stage, the balloons were the first of thousands that Google's leaders eventually hope to launch 20km into the stratosphere in order to bridge the gaping digital divide between the world's 4.8 billion unwired

Dambudzo's letter to his girlfriend

DAMBUDZO WRITES TO SAMANTHA

Dear Samantha

... I think by now you have heard what happened when those hypocrites in administration chased me from their white university giving me an option between being sectioned or expelled. I chose the latter, a decision which shocked them out of their warped wits. I have forgiven them because together with you they thought as an African student from some remote Southern African country I was privileged for receiving tertiary education at Oxford, a learning institution they have overrated as a citadel of knowledge just like Cambridge or Harvard. It is such academic mad houses that keep on churning out arrogant, snobbish, hypocritical and pea-minded bastards who enter the world with the superior airs of holier-than-thou, we and them attitude calling themselves Doctors, Professors or any stupid titles to distance themselves other ordinary folks whom they look down on as dunces.

These idiots have done little in

This is to AfriKa

I am Africa
whirling in a cycle
of lost generations
I am the failure 
in joining hands to brains
But the feet still carry on
eager in the strength of the land
I am magical
I am divine
I am rich
but yet slave to my own ignorance
I am the mother
to a people defeated by their own egoism
I am Africa
the strength of the land

PS ever since I came across this, it's been one of my favourites and today I've decided to share it with the rest of you.

Serena clinches French Open title

World number one Serena Williams won a second French Open title 11 years after her first with a convincing win over defending champion Maria Sharapova.

The American, 31, was pushed at times but led throughout, winning 6-4 6-4 in one hour and 46 minutes.

Williams has now won 16 Grand Slam singles titles, moving her to within two of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, who have 18 each.

And with an unbeaten run that now stands at 31 matches, she will